making love to Carlos this morning. Not after what she'd finally come to understand, and not after it had had time to fully sink in. Things like this took a minute to germinate in one's soul. The awareness left her feeling like doing nothing at all. Numbness threaded through her and left her very sad. Weary. In fact, all she wanted to do was to go home--back to her own place in Beverly Hills.
The emotion had crept up on her by degrees. In the midst of battle when she'd faced her man's other half, the dark side of him, she'd seen horrible images hurling at her. But she'd paid them no mind, then. Going up against a serious demon presence would send every, and anything, into one's mind, so a sister had to be strong, ignore it, laugh at the bullshit. That's what she'd done. Then.
Once she and the team had handled their business--and thankfully all of them had made it out of that madness alive--it was about a party, a celebration of life. They'd won.
Damali peered at the shut door as she sat down slowly on the edge of the wide, midnight-blue porcelain Jacuzzi and began applying the butter to her skin. Suddenly she wanted to cry as much as she had a fight surge roiling inside her.
After the party came a month of pure indulgence in her apexing Neteru's arms. Heaven. Heart-stopping, mind-melting, time- altering, mad-crazy lovemaking day and night until it didn't make any kinda sense. What was there to think about, then? The powerful jolt from his sexy pheromones kept anything out of her head, except getting with him and enjoying every moment of it. She'd almost eloped with him, being so swept up in the passion of it all. They'd only waited a few so that Father Patrick could get back from Rome and they could do the thing proper with their beloved priest, who was like a real father to Carlos.
Damali closed her eyes. Tears wet her lashes. Maybe she should have just gone ahead and married him and not waited. Time was kicking her ass now. The cold light of day was real ugly and she could no longer escape the fleeting impressions that had gradually become too clear and full blown within her mental sight.
It was so unfair, and the rational part of her had diagnosed her problem with logical detachment. By all rights, she knew she couldn't blame him. He'd been under the influence. For several days she'd repeatedly reminded herself of that fact. But the emotional part of her being still had major issues. Her unspent rage seemed to come out of nowhere, which was the crazy part.
And it all. happened in a slow dissolve of her reality as Carlos's apex ebbed, and the spiking hormone levels in her body dissipated to a dull roar. Snatches of information had come back to her third eye with a vengeance. Things no woman should ever see her man do, foul behavior that had been previously blocked within her head was loosed. This was worse than the were-demon incident, to her way of thinking. Oddly, she could live with that and she didn't really go there in her mind. But this thing with a Guardian sister... family, such as it were, was too messed up. Too close to home, literally.
The thing that hurt so much about what she'd witnessed was the fact that the only reason it had happened at all was because he'd defied a direct angelic command... which had tethers to the fact that he'd been so resentful of her command, her position, and the fact that for even a little while, she'd been the one in charge. That hurt. That was how he'd been seduced to prematurely act, contagion or not, it was at the core of his being. That was what had put him in a position of being nearly compromised beyond redemption. And once his brief possession by the unthinkable occurred, he did things under the influence that were horrible.
More than anything else, she also knew that, even possessed, the dark side worked with what was already looming within the shadowy sections of the human spirit. All it did was bring those things to the fore with a vengeance.
Carlos had been angry at Yonnie, way down deep, for making a pass at her. He'd been conflicted and upset with Tara, for Rider's sake and for Yonnie's, and all the dark possession did was elevate it and bring it